Will You Go Down?: Silent Hill 2 and the Male Loneliness Epidemic

By Diego Nicolás Argüello | October 31, 2025 | 5:30pm

Video Games Features Silent Hill

Will You Go Down?: Silent Hill 2 and the Male Loneliness Epidemic

In the r/self subreddit, a man in his early 30s says that the “male loneliness epidemic” is a self-pitying problem with an easy solution. The user, who has since deleted his account eight months after he made the post, argues that society hasn’t abandoned men, but that many men have abandoned society instead by narrowing their social focus solely to romantic validation.

“If your entire social strategy revolves around being ‘wanted’ rather than wanting to engage with the world, you’ll always feel lonely,” the user wrote. “And that’s not a societal problem. That’s a you problem. If you are lonely—truly lonely, not just horny and starved for romantic affection—go outside and talk to people. It’s really that simple.”

In 2023, United States surgeon general Dr. Vivek Murthy declared a national loneliness and social isolation epidemic throughout the country. According to the accompanying study, scientific literature in recent years has shown that one in two adults in the United States reported experiencing loneliness. This was before the start of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Yet, this epidemic has been overshadowed by conversations driven by a male-centric rhetoric. Despite surveys showing roughly equal shares of men and women from the United States saying they’re often lonely, the so-called male loneliness epidemic has been front and center in discussions about isolation for years now. If you spend a modicum of time online, this is hardly a surprise—right-wing and misogynistic personalities, the likes of Joe Rogan and Andrew Tate, continue to replicate and amass a large number of largely young men into the “manosphere,” spewing not just hate, but also speeches about “male rights” and instructions on how to navigate society as “alphas.”

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As absurd as this all sounds, there can be real ramifications for some people, especially the ones who feel lonely, are missing clear insight into who they are as a person and what they want to become, and lack a support network (or, in some cases, professional help). There’s a substantial demographic of men who are being shaped by these harmful figures, as well as almost delirious perceptions of women—a result of misogynistic speeches, sure, but also an obsessive consumption of pornography.

“After a cute date this guy walked me to my door,” reads a response on the Reddit thread in r/self. “We kissed a bit in the doorway. It was nice. After saying good night he said, ‘next time we come back here I want you to submit.'”

The user shares multiple examples of men being unable to handle their emotions normally, jumping to conclusions, and cutting people off on a whim at the slightest inconvenience. In one instance, when the user denied a guy a kiss at the end of a date, he got angry. “He spent the whole night talking about how after Me Too men are afraid to be men. How he didn’t know how to pursue women anymore now. After I said, ‘all we said was to stop raping us. You can still pursue and date us. We just don’t want to be harassed or stalked.’ He got angry and said that I didn’t understand. I’m sure I don’t understand what it’s like to be a man. I do, however, understand how to treat humans with respect.”

In Silent Hill 2, one of the possible story endings sees protagonist James Sunderland “leaving” the town with Maria. Maria is, in James’ eyes, the idealized version of his wife, Mary. The town creates this manifestation from the protagonist’s own carnal desires—rather than the “real” image of his loved one, who spent her last years bedridden due to a terminal disease, James is content to follow the leash of a flirtatious depiction of her.

In reality, this is a punishment inflicted by the town—Maria gets brutally murdered multiple times throughout the story, only to reappear later without giving much explanation. It takes until the very end for James to face reality and contend with the fact that he murdered Mary, and has been attempting to avoid his guilt over it ever since. The player, both through direct and (somewhat) indirect actions, gets to shape the outcome of these attempts, and whether they’re successful or not. By getting the aptly named “Maria” ending, it’s clear that James hasn’t learned anything, which the corresponding cutscene acknowledges by showing her coughing as they’re on the way to the car, subtly indicating that she’s also sick, and the cycle is bound to begin again.

According to the Maria entry of the Silent Hill wiki, in order to achieve this ending, some of the requirements involve avoiding examining Mary’s letter and photo in your inventory, as well as skipping a conversation in a hotel hallway in the final level. Others are more subtle: When Maria is tagging alongside you, you have to actively protect her from enemy attacks, stay close to her at all times, and follow her directional orders to a T.

The Silent Hill 2 remake makes this pursuit all the more tantalizing. Her virtual depiction aims for photorealism in both looks and gestures. She’s also more chatty, commenting on certain locations and actions with fun, flirty flair. Inside Heaven’s Night, a strip club present in the original game that is expanded in the remake by becoming fully explorable, getting close to a pole can trigger a dialogue, with Maria mocking James and asking if he’s gonna dance for her.

It is somewhat tragic to admit that this is the ending I got when I played the remake last year. While I had previously played the original, I had never actually beaten it, nor was I aware of the minutiae involved in unlocking some of the story endings. As such, the ending I got was the organic outcome of my actions. That being said, doing this led me to think about this massive investment in the character, and how it doesn’t ring as yet another example of the trope of NPC companions in video games who tell you where to go and how to solve a puzzle. Maria is an indulgent figure for James—he pays for her unwavering attention with an unspoken devotion, acting less like a knight in shining armor and more like her biggest simp.

I don’t think this extension of the character is a surprise. Rather, I believe it perfectly reflects our current times. Social media algorithms want you to be perpetually horny. I can’t remember the last time I opened my Explore tab on Instagram and didn’t see at least a couple of deliberate thirst traps, some of which have recently gone viral. It’s not uncommon to start or maintain conversations with friends driven mostly by reels of “goth girl” accounts. Sometimes ironically, and sometimes not. This past year in particular, I’ve noticed a staggering increase in the sheer volume of these accounts and short-form videos, with some users presenting themselves as artificially as possible, making ahegao faces or subverting a viral trend to make it horny. In some cases, there’s full nudity that is just masked enough by a movement or a quick camera transition to get past content filters. Yet, this is everywhere, and it’s more aggravated on other platforms. A picture of Sydney Sweeney at Variety’s 2025 Power of Women event, in which she’s wearing a semi-translucent dress, has over 24.6 million views on X (formerly Twitter). Even discarding the number of bots on the platform, over 115,000 users bookmarked the photo.

It’s no wonder that the platform officially allowed porn back in June 2024. There’s no shortage of demand for it, and sadly, many people are taking it to new extremes. A report published in Harper’s Magazine this week provides insight into “gooners,” and how the term itself, which refers to masturbating for long periods of time while deliberately avoiding climax, has grown into its own subculture, permeating (mostly) men in virtual spaces like Discord, or sometimes even in-person events. In response to the survey conducted by Harper’s, one person described the “goonstate,” a sort of fantasized state that people describe as being similar to runner’s high, as a feeling of “intense bliss” and “being high while high.” The person also describes it as “being washed away.”

Over at Psychology Today, social scientist Kasley Killam said that social isolation and loneliness are often used interchangeably, despite a stark difference. She describes the first as the objective state of being alone, with loneliness as the subjective experience of disconnection. The latter, then, means that people aren’t exempt from feeling lonely even when surrounded by others.

“Loneliness can arise from not feeling seen, understood, or validated,” Killam wrote. “It can come from spending time with people who don’t share your values or interests. It can also come from too many superficial interactions and not enough deeper connections.”

There are many manifestations of loneliness. Returning to Silent Hill, earlier this year I spoke with multiple people who find comfort in the horror video game series, expressing a certain coziness in being alone in places like the Woodside Apartments in Silent Hill 2. Perhaps more interesting is the number of folks who use comment sections across YouTube and Reddit to commiserate with one another, sharing stories and experiences while also venting about their everyday struggles with loneliness. When browsing through Silent Hill mixes, in which users curate playlists based on the games’ soundtracks, these sentiments are presented from the get-go, almost as if inviting users to bask in a state of melancholy with titles alone: “Those days are over,” “I hope I find you again,” and “Why do I feel this way?” are just some examples.

Again, these aren’t exclusive to just one fandom or platform. Early this year, my Instagram algorithm started showing me videos of urban climbers getting to the top of skyscrapers and recording themselves balancing on the summit while wearing ski masks. It didn’t take long for these videos to take a sudden, more poignant turn, with users including captions like “today counts for something” and “till next time.” Others increased this with remixes of somber, highly reverbed versions of songs, while including background tracks of women talking. “I don’t know you anymore,” says a crying voice before the footage cuts off to the user climbing a bridge. “You’re going down a path I can’t follow.”

The more time I spend in social media apps surrounded by short-form content that’s clearly aimed at a male-centric demographic, the more I notice what sort of tools are presented front and center to men who are looking for guidance. According to reports, some millennials are outgrowing a constant need to be plugged in, following the collective erosion of the most popular platforms. But those who can’t escape the algorithm are being served with vices following strict guidelines. It’s not just porn, but also substance abuse, and the normalization of gambling sites. Companies want them to consume their content instead, to spend hours of the day scrolling on social media and, ultimately, spend hours of the night masturbating, gambling their savings away, or both. And again, these trends, and the people pushing specific, targeted rhetoric, are causing active harm, not just personally for each individual and how they perceive the world around them, but also to others, even in public spaces. Just last week, as reported by Jezebel, a clip of sports reporter Olivia Cleary went viral. In it, multiple men constantly interrupt her, shout internet memes at the camera, and purposefully get in the way of the frame. There are countless other examples, both on and off camera, and it seems they aren’t ceasing anytime soon.

Recent films like Friendship and Companion have started to provide commentary on this so-called epidemic. Meanwhile, some people are building support groups to try and connect with one another. In Colorado, a fitness group aims for men to find “fellowship” and become “leaders” in their community. Over in Los Angeles, “Men Walking, Men Talking” serves as a social group that provides a safe space for men to socialize and make friends. “I built this space because I so deeply believe in the need for men to be able to develop relationships with each other,” organizer Jonathan Jacobs said.

As algorithms continue to attempt to pervade our lives and daily habits, and companies keep on pushing for artificiality and isolation—such as Mark Zuckerberg thinking that befriending AI chatbots can cure male loneliness—it’s no surprise that people who are craving for legitimate connections can be easily manipulated. All it takes is for the algorithm to learn just enough about them to tailor speeches and content exposure to their liking, indulging their artificial desires.

I still remember my surprise when I installed a mixed reality porn app on my VR headset, and all of a sudden, a virtual depiction of a woman was standing in my apartment. The customization options were what you’d expect—you could pick anything from height and body proportions to hairstyle and outfit options. This app was meant to be played wirelessly, which meant that the fidelity wasn’t the best. If you want to strive for it, you need an absurdly expensive PC and a whole afternoon to set up mods and even room lighting to try and replicate a human person as closely as possible. But even in this state, I sensed a rare, uncanny valley feeling once the character started walking around while speaking, while maintaining her gaze on me.

Regardless of customization options and features like physics and support for hand tracking, the spell quickly wore off. When using the directional prompt to lie down on the bed, collisions with objects clipped the clothing, creating artifacts that morphed into the face, showcasing teeth and eyes placed inside an empty husk, barely resembling a body.

“I’m always here for you, I want you to know that,” spoke an AI-generated voice as the character walked away stuck in a pattern, facing away from me and becoming smaller while pushing through the wall.

I closed the app and turned around toward the mirror, only to see myself in the reflection.

Diego Nicolás Argüello is a freelance journalist from Argentina who has learned English thanks to videogames. You can read his work in places like Polygon, the New York Times, The Verge, and more. You can also find him on Bluesky.